Joint statement with cucfa in support of UC-FTA Unit 17 demands for recognition of UC librarians' academic freedom

On July 26, 2018 UC negotiators rejected a proposal by the UC-AFT Unit 17 that academic freedom berecognized as a right of all UC librarians as academic employees. UC negotiators reportedly argued thatacademic freedom is granted only to faculty and students “to enable free expression in the classroom,” thatit is “a professional standard established by faculty, for faculty,” and that their position was consistent with“AAUP’s stance on Academic Freedom.”

"College and university librarians share the professional concerns of faculty members.Academic freedom is indispensable to librarians in their roles as teachers and researchers.Critically, they are trustees of knowledge with the responsibility of ensuring the intellectualfreedom of the academic community through the availability of information and ideas, nomatter how controversial, so that teachers may freely teach and students may freely learn.Moreover, as members of the academic community, librarians should have latitude in theexercise of their professional judgment within the library, a share in shaping policy withinthe institution, and adequate opportunities for professional development and appropriatereward."

The Council of University of California Faculty Associations (CUCFA) and the California Conference of AAUPchapters (CA-AAUP) wholeheartedly agree with AAUP’s 1972 statement, recognize librarians as fellow faculty,and jointly support UC-AFT Unit 17’s request that all librarians be “entitled to academic freedom, as theirprimary responsibility to their institution and profession is to seek, state, and act according to the truth asthey see it.”

CUCFA and CA-AAUP therefore urge UC President Napolitano to instruct UC negotiators to grant academicfreedom to university librarians as they rightly deserve and have requested.

As student and community organizations affiliated with the University of California, we are standing together with the workers who make the UC run every day. Right now, over 25,000 UC service and patient care workers, members of AFSCME Local 3299, are fighting for a fair contract that protects them and the dignity and respect of their families, patients, and students.Who Are We Fighting For AFSCME 3299 members are 85% women, immigrants, and people of color. This fight is not only about economic equality, but also racial and gender equality.- Among UC’s low-wage workers, Black women face the greatest income disparities, and Black service workers have to work on average 6 years before reaching the starting wage of their white male counterparts;- Black and Latinx employees make starting wages 20 and 21 percent less, respectively, than white folks hired to similar positions;- From 1996 to 2015, there was a 37% decline in the share of Black workers in AFSCME-represented titles at the UC, which may be partly explained by UC’s contracting out practices;- Today, there is a higher percentage of Black UC outsourced workers at UCLA and UCB than UC career service workers; and- The UC continues to ignore the intersectional Sanctuary Demands first delivered by workers and students in January 2017. A year later, UCB cook David Cole was assaulted by UCPD while peacefully protesting for his contract on Feb 1st, underlining the UC’s poor treatment of Black workers. UC also rejects the proposed targeted local hire for formerly incarcerated workers––to ensure that our good union jobs are accessible to formerly incarcerated people.

What Are We Fighting ForAFSCME 3299 demands: - Fair wages, affordable healthcare, retirement with dignity, job security with no contracting out, ban the box, targeted local hire program, strengthened sexual harassment protections, increased wages for student workers, and non-collaboration with ICE. UC’s Last, Best, and Final offer to AFSCME service workers: - A modest 2 percent raise - counteracted by eliminating step increases, attacking workers’ job security by contracting out its workforce, proposing cuts to workers’ healthcare and pension benefits, and ignoring all of our demands to strengthen the language to address racial and gender issues at UC.

Black and Latinx folks, low-wage workers, and other marginalized communities must often fight to be heard and treated fairly. We call on the UC to make meaningful changes in its treatment and compensation of these groups - and all workers that make the UC system run - first and foremost by granting the workers of AFSCME 3299 a fair contract.

We, the undersigned student and community organizations, pledge to support AFSCME 3299 members in their fight for racial and economic justice by: - Sending a letter to UC President Janet Napolitano - Coming out to support AFSCME 3299 actions - Honoring all AFSCME 3299 picket lines, strikes and boycotts.

February 21, 2018

Resolutionof the California Conference of the AmericanAssociation of University Professors regarding California State University Executive Orders 1100 (Revised) and 1110

The California Conference of the American Association of University Professors (CA-AAUP) met with members of the California State University (CSU) Academic Senate and California Faculty Association at the CA-AAUP’s February 10, 2018, Annual Meeting in Los Angeles, California. Following that meeting, the undersigned members of the CA-AAUP issue this condemnation of the process by which CSU Chancellor Timothy White produced Executive Orders 1100 (Revised) and 1110.

We quote from CFA’s October 29, 2017, Resolution in Support of Rescinding California State University Executive Order 1100 (Revised). With the CFA, we conclude that the orders were, in fact, “issued without appropriate and statutorily required consultation or consideration of faculty governance protocols,” thereby

committing an egregious violation of faculty governance and academic freedom and undermining faculty control over academic preparation and standards as well as faculty purview over the curriculum.

Referring to the November 2, 2017, Open Letter to Chancellor White from the Chairs of the CSU Campus Senates, we conclude that Executive Orders 1100 (Revised) and 1110

were developed and presented to faculty without adequate consultation or true shared governance. All curricular decisions affect students directly, and therefore all curricular decisions must, by nature, lie with the teaching faculty and students; General Education criteria are not exempted from [Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act] principles.

The CA-AAUP views Chancellor White’s procedures in issuing Executive Orders 1100 (Re- vised) and 1110 as a direct assault on the principles of shared governance, principles that form the very core of AAUP values. We call upon Chancellor White to read the AAUP’s Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities. We also call upon the Chancellor to refrain from tak- ing further actions that undermine the principles of academic freedom and shared governance enshrined in that document, which values are reified in California statute and in case law.

Passing from process to substance, CA-AAUP supports CFA's October 29, 2017, Resolution in Support of Rescinding ... Executive Order 1100 (Revised). We agree that the order

eviscerates Section F “Comparative Cultural Studies / Gender Race, Class and Ethnicity Studies,” as well as foreign languages, denying our students a culturally responsive education and failing to demonstrate an understanding of or respect for California's increasing diversity

Further quoting CFA’s October 29, 2017, Resolution, CA-AAUP notes that Chancellor White is out-of-step with “other systems of public education in California” which are, in fact,

CA-AAUP joins with the Academic Senate of the California State University and eighteen of the CSU campus senates in calling for immediate rescission or, barring that, delay in implementing Executive Order 1100 (Revised), so that our colleges “may continue to provide the breadth and quality of education that our students deserve.”

Turning to Executive Order 1110, CA-AAUP supports CFA’s October 29, 2017, Resolution in Support of Rescinding California State University Executive Order 1110. CA-AAUP condemns that order’s attempt to eliminate the English Placement Test and the Entry Level Mathematics Test. Elimination of these examinations will dramatically disadvantage poor students, students of color, students for whom English is a second language, and students entering college with educational deficits. We agree that these examinations are “the baseline for providing our students the academically responsible quality education our faculty seek to provide and our students deserve.”

Quoting CFA’s October 29, 2017, Resolution in Support of Rescinding California State University Executive Order 1110, we ask that

Chancellor White immediately rescind Executive Order 1110, which will allow develop- mental, first year, and General Education courses to continue improving the skills and competencies of our students.

Quoting that same document, CA-AAUP also calls upon Chancellor White to

refrain from reissuing Executive Order 1110 until such time as appropriate and meaningful consultation has taken place and campus faculty have had sufficient time to ensure that the curriculum we require our students to complete continues to provide the quality education our students expect and deserve.

The California Conference of the American Association of University Professors

Alex Zukas, National University (2016- 2018), PresidentClaudio Fogu, University of California, Santa Barbara (2017-2018), Acting Vice President for University of CaliforniaMary Ann Irwin, Diablo Valley College (2016-2018), Secretary/TreasurerRosalinda Quintanar, San Jose State University (2016-2018), Vice President for California State UniversityKatie Graham, Diablo Valley College (2016-2018), Vice President for California Community CollegesAntonio Gallo, Representing California Faculty Association (South)George Beckwith, National University (2016-2018), Vice President for Private Colleges and UniversitiesSteven Filling, Representing California Faculty Association (North)